Short Story
This is a short story I wrote for writing class in school. It was originally written in swedish, I have done an translation/interpretation of it for fun. I would be forever grateful if someone read it and made a comment. That is my new rule, you must comment if you read any of my poems or short stories. Not my personal rabble but the writing I actually put my soul in. So enjoy the story and please tell me if you discover any grammar ore spelling error. I have tried to eliminate it but you never know.
Rain, Fire and lost souls
He had always loved the rain, as long as he could remember. But this rain came to late. But even rain that was late brought something good with it.
The Architect was angry with his boss that gave him this worthless profession in the worst of times. Architects did not need that much attention to get satisfied. It might also have been his laziness that made him unpleased. He did not give his full-hearted attention to his mission. And sure had the almighty uttered his disapproval but that was nothing he cared about. He had given up the hope on ever get those angel wings clean again. He used them as a pillow. He went sulking because of his friends got more interesting people to protect. Like writers, police or politicians, they sure needed help. Architects planned houses, end of story. No bad things happened to them, no persecution, any shootings or angry citizens. Their problems contained math riddles such as difficult angles or how much a wall might carry. They did not need him, the needed a pocket calculator. It was different in the good old times when they truly needed him. Before those digital numbers completely took over the market and ridiculed his divine powers. It was different…
- Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here by your fire?
- No, sit down and make use of the little heat that exists in this country.
The afternoon sunlight warms his back at the same time as it throw light over car wrecks and mutated trees. He watches her as she sits down by the fire, folds her legs in beneath her and let a sigh find itself into the flames. They are like two lost souls at the same crossroad. She starts to tell the story of her life and sorrows. He hears her but the sound seems to come from a distant location. Her scarlet hair flutters and seems to burn like the fire as the sunbeams hit them. Her name is Dina and she has no home. He tells her that his name is The Architect and he has no home either. She does not discover his lies. They talk to each other.
- But why did you come here in the first place? She asks
- You see it was hard for me to get any job when the mine closed. I lost my work as a delivery boy and stood there, nineteen years old with no future. (He likes making up life stories)
- But it did not work out well and after a couple of odd jobs you gave up and became an idler?
- Exactly.
It goes on like this; they talk about his fabricated fate and her real life with true sorrows and delights. It does not work to reveal to everyone he meets that he has existed since the creation of the earth. Some might also not find it that bright to tell that his task is to protect architects that do not want him anymore. He thinks about it while talking to her. That she with such a beautiful way to be would not be as beautiful if he tell how it really is. Why the world looks like it does and what everything actually means. Then the world would not be as beautiful. The humans live best unknowingly. What is the point to frightening them with reality?
She tells him about her son that has been taken away by the social services, that was how she ended up in the streets. She could not care less when the only thing she had was taken away from her. His name is Elijah and has something wrong with is brain. Dina had not been able to help him so he ran away from her. She had been standing there on the porch screaming his name until her throat broke. He ran away and the social services took him. She was convinced that he missed her now when he could not run away from her anymore. After his departure her life in the small town felt like a prison. She felt trapped. She took after her son and ran away.
They smoke up their last cigarettes together, the scent of his strong unfiltered meets her thin cigarillos and creates a thin haze over the place. But there is another smell that mixes up with the sweet tobacco. It smells burnt, not from the branches they use but something lighter.
- Shit! He screams and runs up, the angel wings has caught fire.
- What is happening?
He does not answer her; he takes the burning wings and starts to flap desperately around with them. It looks like a mad rain dance. A man, indefinite age, worn out blacks clothes, thin as a toothpick, beard and an empty gaze runs around the car wrecks with something that looks like wings in his hands. They are burning and he is desperate. But in the middle of this outrageous dance he feels how wonderful it is that they are burning up, he does not want to and cannot help architects. Now the last evidence of his real identity is burning up. The only right thing to do comes up to him. He puts them in a pool of water. It takes a couple of minutes before he can investigate the damage. He circulates around the pool and Dina looks at him, not having a clue on what the heck is going on. The wings are totally burned, like flags made of carbon. He sits down, now with an even emptier gaze with his burnt wings in his lap.
- Why are the toy wings so important? She finally asks him as she now dares to crawl up to him again.
- They are my identity, the little I have left of it. He looks deep into her green eyes that is trying to look beyond his emptiness.
- Was it not you who said just thirty minutes ago that you had fled your identity?
He did not answer, he just leaned forward and placed a light kiss on her forehead. They put themselves next to each other in the grass as the sun finally goes to sleep behind the horizon. He holds his burnt wings against his chest and cries silently. She is letting her hair flow out on the green grass and carefully takes his hand. Two lonely people falls asleep next to a fire that both gave warmth and took the last piece of an identity. They do not wake up until the rain falls the next morning. He can still feel the sorrow in his heart.
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